Reaching the top 1% of their profession still means 1k-10k copies sold, nothing you can make a living on.
As the article states, just 0.01 percent of books sell more than 100k copies, it's not enough to be a great author (not average, but better than 99% of them) you'd need to be somewhat exceptional (better than 99.99%) in order to earn a salary from books.
IMHO there's just too much competition, there so many more "top 1%+" authors in any genre than anyone can read, and given the economics described in this article, many of them don't even bother with publishing and offer their amazing writing for free.
As the article states, just 0.01 percent of books sell more than 100k copies, it's not enough to be a great author (not average, but better than 99% of them) you'd need to be somewhat exceptional (better than 99.99%) in order to earn a salary from books.
IMHO there's just too much competition, there so many more "top 1%+" authors in any genre than anyone can read, and given the economics described in this article, many of them don't even bother with publishing and offer their amazing writing for free.